Blitzing New York

New York just got blitzed. State lawmakers agreed on a jaw-dropping spending plan with off-the-chart outlays of $212 billion and monster tax hikes of more than $4 billion. It’s a grim picture for most New Yorkers but far-left progressives got just about everything they wanted. To save the state, average voters need to rebel.

They’re goosing spending by about $18 billion, or 9 percent, over last year (and $39 billion, or 23 percent, over the year before).

It’s the largest feeding frenzy in decades by far.

New York will now shell out more than Florida and Texas hand out combined, though they total

2 ½ times as many residents. Even California, with twice the population, will spend only slightly more.

It’s a blowout win for special-interest groups, like the teachers’ unions. There’s an extra $3 billion for schools, for example, though New York already leads the nation in per-student spending.

There’s $2.1 billion for illegal immigrants. State employees get $600 million for deferred raises, while health-care workers who provide Medicaid services will see $2 billion for wage hikes. There’s even $2 million for the Hispanic Federation (which has deep ties to the Bronx Democratic Party).

Progressives are also rejoicing over the $4 billion-plus in punish-the-rich tax hikes, which will increase the take from millionaires by up to 24 percent . . . if the high earners don’t move out of state, taking their incomes and often their companies with them. And the hit comes even as the COVIDwracked local economy struggles to rebound.

Tax hikes weren’t remotely necessary. Last month, Washington dumped an unheard-of $33 billion (in total) on Albany, City Hall, mass transit and state schools, atop tens of billions from last year’s COVID relief bills.

Residents must now work to vote out these drunken sailors just to prevent more damage. It won’t be easy, when much of state spending enriches the interests that help elect these extremists — and the “moderates” who enable them. But it may be the only hope left now for the Empire State.

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